theological

for the sake of theology and debate, no intention to upset anyone at all


through a series of coincidental events, around christmas last year (lots of religious epics were being played which invited some discussion) I got interested in a chap called Ahkenaten

around that time I came across him in a quote from a book of quotes by the people from QI Stephen Fry's show

its fairly innocuous but it struck a chord with someone who argues with people quite a bit

Quote :

“True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.”

some people hold "consistency" as the gold standard of intellectual integrity, I think that is rather cheap myself, smacks of pseudo intellectual ...ish... ness.

Anyways, coz most of the quotes in the book were from politicians and authors and that, and this one was from a Pharoah, I thought Id look him up

so it turns out he seems to be one of the first advocates of mono theism, abolishing all other egyptian gods and taking all power from the preisthood to leave the egyptians with just one god Amon-ra, the Sun god... so what you have is sun worship

having a budding interest in history, poltics and theology I started wondering if this might not be an indicator of a prejudaic model of monotheism (Akhenatons reign was 1400 years BC, around the time most reckon the Old Testament started to be written)

turns out other folk had wondered the same thing, did the Jews take a religion from their "masters" and bastardise it? did their slave masters cook up a bastardised religion for the slaves? my tiny mind began wondering frantically thinking I was the first person ever to think it

http://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/5_5/monotheism

(others have conjectured that spells from the egyptian book of the dead formed the framework for the 10 commandments, which seems likely, but these same "fringe" dudes make other really wild unverifiable claims about their being LOADS of crucified messiah god kings other than Jesus)

turns out, historically speaking not every historian is convinced the Jews were even enslaved by the egyptians at all... and as Danite says its really unlikely the Jews took their mono theism from Akhenaten because...


over to Danite...

Sorry, interjecting here ... wasn't Zoroaster/Zarathushtra around about this same time also? He was also into this monotheism idea too, as I remember it.

Adding wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

Hi Richie, well firstly the jews did not become strictly monotheistic as we understand that term untill the returm of the exiles from persia in about 550 bc.There was a major reform and all previous cananite and near eastern beliefs practiced in popular israelite religion up to that time were expunged. That being said there always was a small minority who preached absolute monotheism from the very earliest days , these being the prophets, so monotheism as a belif sysytem has very ancient roots within the general framework of israelite thought.Now where did this come from?

Well as for ahkenaton,yes the connection has often been made bewteen the roots of judaism and his belief sysytem.Well here are the objections.Firstly jewish religious beliefs have God speaking to everybody and whos laws are incumbent on all, so all are equal before God and the law.Ahkenatons religion like those of the other near eastern peoples was a very top down type of affair, it was his personal god.True he did try to ban the other gods but this was something he did to his people rather than something God did with israel.As well he depicted his god while the israelites never depicted theirs, this is considered a key element in full monotheism.

As well the roots of israelite religion are to be found in the tradtions of the wanderings after the Exodus when they re encounter their God in Sinai, there has been much good schalrship done on this.Suffice it say that roots of israeliye religion are to be found in large part in what occured in the Sinai.On the other hand this doesnt mean that the exodus occured the way the bible says it did in all the details.In fact some say nothing happend.I happen to agree with the group that says "something happened" ie a small group of people maybe 4-6000 left egypt and had a transformative experiance in the desert and brought this belief sysytem wuth them into the central highlands of Israel where they met other groupd of semites who were there for various reasons.These groupd adopted the beleif sysytem for a variety reasons and this helped create some of the glue that went into the formation of earliest israel.

As well we have cananite influences that were heavliy transformed, for example the very name israel contains the name of the chief god of the cananite pantheon.However the name Israel means "one hwo struggled with El" or the "strugglers of El" or "El Struggles" in other word denoting some kind of mission relating to El and the people, this is a use of the concept of El thats is totaly outside the cananite world view, thus denoting a radical deperture for the use of the term El.We can also see that the two traditions, one with its cananite roots and one with its exodus roots became conflated .This is of course only scratching the surface of the issue of the origins of ancient israelite religion, but I think it shows why mainstream scholars look outside the egyptian world for the roots of Judaism.

As for the "fringe elements" you refer. this is why studying history is so important, they can use one bit of truth and weave a whole other story out of it.Yes I have heard how the jesus story is nothing more than a copy of the Osiris story.Well no doubt the Osiris story and others like Mithras had themes that were well known in the roman world and no dount some of them could have gotten woven into early christianity as it left its judean roots and started to penentrate the greco roman world, but to say the jesus story is no kore than some mere rip off of the egyptinas is bad scholarship at best and very un honest at worst. Hope that helps answer some of your questions.Regards

Schoalrs are divided on dating zarathustra.Whatever the case, the basics of his belief sysytem was that there were two oppossing forces in the world The Truth and The Lie,he beleived ina duality that would clash with ultimate triumph of the The Truth.The whole idea of the devil has its roots in this dualism.NO dount when the Jews lived in persia there was some influence from this ancient persian religion on them, whos influence began to be felt around the 500bc mark.The first time satan is mentioned in the bible is in materials that date from this period, etc , so yes he was of some influence on the judaism of the second temple period, not in core beliefs but non the less, there is some influence. Good point!

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As for the "fringe elements" you refer. this is why studying history is so important, they can use one bit of truth and weave a whole other story out of it.Yes I have heard how the jesus story is nothing more than a copy of the Osiris story.Well no doubt the Osiris story and others like Mithras had themes that were well known in the roman world and no dount some of them could have gotten woven into early christianity as it left its judean roots and started to penentrate the greco roman world, but to say the jesus story is no kore than some mere rip off of the egyptinas is bad scholarship at best and very un honest at worst. Hope that helps answer some of your questions.Regards

is there any evidence anywhere that any other messiahs where crucified?

there are similiarties between christian mythology and other religions mythology that have to be considered, but they piss in the punch by going too far and saying things like "at least 12 other messiahs were crucified, rose from the dead after 3 days"

some even claiming Bhudda journeyed with 12 disciplies and performed similar miracles like walking on water and turning water into wine, which I have never found any reference to


thanks for taking the time Danite

Hey Richie, I dont think they mean were curcified but that they died and were resurected after three days.Like Mithra and others, and no doubt the early christian preachers migth have been indeed tempted to present jesus in a light that would ahve been easily understood by a greco roman audience, however the roots of the Jesus story lie clearly in the world of Judea.
Did my response to your question about the relationship between judaism and ahkenaten help clear it up? I am not sure I expressed myself very clearly, it is hard to give a short answer to such a large question. Cheers

oh no they say "crucified" very specifically mate

in the "zeitgeist" movie he claims krishna was crucified! but then he is the same tool that claimed "Horizon" had its root in the words "Horus" and "zone".... what he could make a film but not access etymology.com??

then you have this book "the worlds sixteen crucifed saviours"

at the beginning of the year I got very interested in looking into the roots of christianiaty as being some kind of assimiliation of other faiths but reading people who research in that field, some of it is.... uh... not very scholastically rigourous... and really just seemed like people with an agenda building a case without limiting themselves to building the case on verifiable facts

things like referecning books which reference other books which reference other books and leave you thinking ok, where is the original study? the evidence?

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Did my response to your question about the relationship between judaism and ahkenaten help clear it up?

it was certainly appreciated, but no it didnt really clear it up- I think the fact that it is not even agreed that the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, makes the theory that all Abrahamic religions are based on the sun worship of Akhenaton in some way redundant and facile.

Its more complex. And with a lack of archeological evidence, probably unknowable.

Richie, yes thats my point, there are mnay reasons to reject the claim that Judaism was influenced by the cult of ahkenaton.However there is good reason to believe that, some type of exodus did in fact occur.The evidence lies in the written materials in the Bible, some of which date to a very early period and so show that some form of the exodus story was extant at the evry early stages of the formation of the israelite people sometime over the course of the 1200s bc.The archaeology that you speak of is in the biblical texts themselves,a s well their is some circumstantial evidence to support the claim that a small group of people fled egypt.This why mainstream scholars believe that the roots of israelite religion must be looked ofr in the experiance of this "moses group" in the wilderness tradtions and some material coming from the cananite world as well. If you are very interested in this subject of the exodus I can refer you to some forst rate and very up to date books by eminent scholars in the field.

It is interesting that you mentioned Zitgeist as that was the example I had in mind.This is a very good example of how fringe groups with an agenda can use partial truths to weave a whole stroy and sell it modern man who has little knowledge of history.Whether or not their was 100 crucified saviors,the fact remains that the jesus stroy remains rooted in the reality of the jewish world in roman judea.Might as well claim his story was based on the thousands of other jews crucified by the romans in judea.The romans crucified rebels all over Judea and the empire, no need for early christians to ivoke the Osiris myth, they had more than enough examples in their own region.

Please allow me to turn you on to some serious and great scholarship about early christianity that will blow all this bull shit right out the window. "The Historical Jesus" by Crossan "Excavating Jesus" by crossan. "Rabbi Paul" by Chilton.These men are eminent and life long scholars of the issue, they go direct to the sources. reading their work will open up the subject for you I am sure.

For the Exodus, a very in depth and highly acclaimed book ( by fellow scholars" is "Ancient israel in Sinai" The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition, by James K Hoffmeier, another brilliant fellow his work and views are supported by the leading mainstream scholars.Another good general reference book is "The Hisotry of Ancient Israel" hershel Shanks editor published by the Biblical Archaeology Society, in fact why not have a look at their site, they have all kinds of articles relating to ancient israel and the near east.

Ancient israelite religion which developed into modern judaism is a conflation of a various regional elements , that were added to unique elements and all put together in a unique israelite way , over millenia to form the judaism we have today. Christianity or should I say the early jesus movement started as jewish sectarian movement, purely interested in local issues that was made more accessible by paul and the views he developed by allowing Gentiles to become the New Israel by simply accepting the TEn Commandments , while other is the "church" in jerusalem insisted on full conversion to judaism, this was the position of james the brother of jesus.Well its a big subject but those books I mentioned will be a great introduction to all these issues. Please feel to ask all you want.Regards

Good read guys, very interesting. I ate a whole bag of midget gems whilst reading this thread.

Danite, will check out some of your suggested reading. Hope my library stocks a few titles.

Saw Amenhotep IV or Akhenaten at Cairo Museum a few years ago. Always intrigued me as there was a theory he and I share a hereditary genetic condition called Marfan's Syndrome. He was certainly interesting looking.

Interesting that you mention the Jesus's crucifixtion was not an unusual form of punishment /execution at the time for a Jewish troublemaker by the Romans. I was under the impression from other reading that there were many gnostics travelling & preaching in the middle east at this time (john the Baptist for example). Was christianity simply a small cult that got lucky & was able to attract influential & high society members?

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I was under the impression from other reading that there were many gnostics travelling & preaching in the middle east at this time (john the Baptist for example). Was christianity simply a small cult that got lucky & was able to attract influential & high society members?

and is it possible that Jesus was originally a follower of John the Baptist?

thanks Danite

Blakops, I am not sure John the baptist was a gnostic, that movement started a few hundred years after John lived and was in the end repressed by the burgeoning orthodox church( ie european roman church).However John the baptist and Jesus were two of many preachers in Judea each with their own visions.it is clear from the gospels that jesus and john had an important relationship, as well John has added a dimension to the tradtional jewish immersion in water, calling it a baptism.
When you use the term christinaity, most schoalrs would argue that temr becomes relevant with the preaching of paul who set the foundations for the development of a new religion semi independant of its jewish origin.The original followers of jesus did not call themselves chrsitians, they considered themselves to ne jews in everyway.

You ask if christianity got "lucky" well in a way it did for many reasons, please have a look at the book Rabbi Paul, if the subject really intrestes you , it is worth a few bucks to buy if you cant get it in the library.The author really deals in depth with Pauls role in the development of what we now call christianity and its spread.Glad you enjoy the subject.

Richie youa re welcome, but I get the feeling you are not finding the satisfaction you were looking for.If so i would suggest you read those books I mentioned they really are very good. Cheers

Danite wrote:

Richie youa re welcome, but I get the feeling you are not finding the satisfaction you were looking for.If so i would suggest you read those books I mentioned they really are very good. Cheers

on no mate not at all, I am satisfied that my pet theory is baseless. and Im a bit embarassed by it, coz I thought I had thought of it first

Here is one I only got yesterday: doesnt say anywhere in the Bible that Jesus was born on December 25th.

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The apostles in the Bible predicted that some Christians would adopt pagan beliefs to enable them to make their religion more palatable to the pagans around them. Therefore, some scholars think the church chose the date of this pagan celebration to interest them in Christianity. The pagans were already used to celebrating on this date.

There must be books exploring the relationship between Biblically referenced Christian lore and Christian themed mythology.

things like Jesus never actually claiming himself to be the son of god, lucifer and satan not being synonymous, that type of thing that seems to have just been built around Christianity and become an accepted part of it.

And how this impacts on the perception of the Church which seems self empowered to just edit and add at will?

Hi Danite. Been enjoying this thread immensely.

Gnosticism is now believed to be pre-christ.

"The beginnings of Gnosticism have long been a matter of controversy and are still largely a subject of research. The more these origins are studied, the farther they seem to recede in the past.

Whereas formerly Gnosticism was considered mostly a corruption of Christianity, it now seems clear that the first traces of Gnostic systems can be discerned some centuries before the Christian Era. Its Eastern origin was already maintained by Gieseler and Neander; F. Ch. Bauer (1831) and Lassen (1858) sought to prove its relation to the religions of India; Lipsius (1860) pointed to Syria and Phoenicia as its home, and Hilgenfeld (1884) thought it was connected with later Mazdeism. Joel (1880), Weingarten (1881), Koffmane (1881), Anrich (1894), and Wobbermin (1896) sought to account for the rise of Gnosticism by the influence of Greek Platonic philosophy and the Greek mysteries, while Harnack described it as "acute Hellenization of Christianity".

For the past twenty-five years, however, the trend of scholarship has steadily moved towards proving the pre-Christian Oriental origins of Gnosticism. At the Fifth Congress of Orientalists (Berlin, 1882) Kessler brought out the connection between Gnosis and the Babylonian religion. By this latter name, however, he meant not the original religion of Babylonia, but the syncretistic religion which arose after the conquest of Cyrus. The same idea is brought out in his "Mani" seven years later. In the same year F.W. Brandt published his "Mandiäische Religion". This Mandaean religion is so unmistakably a form of Gnosticism that it seems beyond doubt that Gnosticism existed independent of, and anterior to, Christianity. "

Nothing to do with what you guys are discussing really.

I have very limited knowledge on this subject & will read your suggestions & keep an eye on these topics.

Cheers Matt

Richie, yes there is alot of controversy as to what exactly was the original gospel.Many scholars believe their was a sour document they call "Q" which was used to form the basis of the four gospels which have numerous differences between them.As for Dec 25th, yes that was the date of Saturnalia in Rome a major festival.In fact the christmas tree is of pagan germanic origin.One must always keep in mind the agendas of the writters of any text.The closer to the time of jesus and place of compostion to Judea, Jesus is portrayed in conflict with certain jewish groups.When we get to John it is THE JEWS period. I would suggest you have a look at the books I mentioned as well another very good one called "Lost Christianities" (Dont remember the authors anme) which shows tha mnay different forms that existed untill orthodoxy was imposed at Nicea in 323 ad. Glad I could answer your questions about akhenaten.

blackops, thanks for the very interesting info, i wasnt aware that gnostic was applied to non christian teachers.As far as i know gnostics preached finding "knowledge within"Thus many different types could be considered as such I would imagine.Thnaks for that info.I learned something new

Danite & Ritchie. Really enjoyed this thread. Now about xmas trees.......

Reading through here it appears some of you guys are quite read and educated on this.

I will throw in 2 cents, I apologize if this was mentioned already, but amongst many books, and much more, I saw one particular "documentary" that I found most interesting and informative.

If you haven't already seen this, check it out. It's very interesting...

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Of course, take it with a grain of salt, nothing is absolute in this. But nonetheless, it's very interesting.....